WANT TO MAKE AN AUDIOBOOK OF YOUR NOVEL?

I loved your blog article on audio books, but I don't know the technical aspects of self publishing an audio book. Was there much expense for you in doing it?

When
I approached my publisher about audio books, they thought it
would be too expensive to hire a professional actor, and to rent a
sound-proof recording studio that could produce a quality product. I
responded I could use my own voice, and that technology has probably
improved to the point it could be done at home. How did you self
publish? Is that something you could assist me with?

I thought if Walter had questions, many of you might have as well. So here goes:It can be expensive --

Some actors will take a royalty share but most want a fee as there is significant work involved producing an audiobook. Typically they charge a fee that includes the editing –

so you get a price per finished hour of audio – which can vary from $200-$400. So for a 90,000 word book, this would come out at around 10 hours of finished audio – costing between $2000 and $4000.This may sound steep –

{Only $1.99 if buy the Kindle book}

but a 10 hour finished book will have at least 75 hours of solid work behind it – recording, editing and final quality check (it takes 10 hours just to listen to it!). If you divide it out, this is paying the actor about $27 per hour on the lower rate – which is not not excessive for a professional running a business. You shake your head, "How hard could this editing be?"Editing an audiobook is a painstaking job – removing the errors from the recording and maybe adding in pauses for effect or cutting long gaps to smooth out dialogue. In addition you have to be listening out for and then remove, all the strange wheezes and pops, coughs and clunks and stomach gurgles that somehow get onto the track. Add to this the removal of odd external street noises (police sirens, dogs barking etc) which are inevitable if you do not record in a sound-proofed room or have a directional mic. There is some art involved in this –

deciding to leave a noisy breath in the middle of a sentence or removing one from the beginning of a phrase will depend on the flow and context of the passage. Many authors have not planned in advance for a paragraph to be read aloud and this makes the job of the recording artist quite a challenge. Frequently there are gaspings as the poor actor struggles to get in enough air after a long sentence with many sub-clauses or commas!DON'T STOP READING IN DISMAY!THERE IS ACX!

(Walter ask your publisher if you have the audio rights to your books. If not, ask them if they could grant them to you since they are not going to use them. To use ACX you must own the audio rights to your book.)

For those of you who haven’t visited ACX – you should – it is a brilliant uploading service for independent producers and authors. They allow authors to advertise for the type of narrator they would like (accent, age, style etc) and provide an audition text for any interested party to use to record a sound test. The auditions come in, the author selects the one they like best and then the narrator goes off to do the work. It is a really simple utility to use and it marries authors and producers up and handles contracts, payments, sign offs etc and then gets the finished job up onto Amazon, Audible and iTunes. They offer all sorts of payment options for producers – including royalty splits and they then handle the payments to you when the book sales start flooding in…. With this option your outlay is minimal – you are just sacrificing half your future royalties.But since the narrator is looking at continuing to be paid, she/he is motivated to do her or his very best work to spread "word of mouth." -- so to speak.So for authors thinking about audiobooks - using an ACX narrator on the split-royalty deal will give you an audiobook for no up-front outlay, that brings in at least the same yield as your Kindle version and the added bonus of an additional medium in which to expose your work.

18 comments:

There's a lot that goes into an audio book, for sure! Having different pay options surely opens doors for people. Making sure you pick the right actor is key! And funny the sounds that get picked up :))

D.G.:The old ways to get readers are wilting, no longer working for those just entering the self-publishing world. We must break out of the authors buying authors ghetto if we are to become financially successful as writers.

A few can spend much of their days on the social networks to boost their sales, but it is not self-sustaining.

I signed a contract with ACX this weekend, but still haven't completed all the requirements, being that I'm a bit tech challenged. I own my audio rights, so I still a bit miffed as to why my publisher is shy about audio books.

...I've been asked on more than one occasion if my novel, South of Charm, will eventually be an audio book. My publisher doesn't seem interested, fearing the overhead vs. profit, therefore the idea is currently paddling in knee deep water and going nowhere fast. I'll run ACX by him, sounds interesting.

On a side note, a few weeks ago I walked in on my boss listening to Fifty Shades on audio book in his office...quite uncomfortable for the both of us. Strange fella, that man ;)

Great information, Roland. I don't know if everyone realizes the boom in audiobooks, but you're on the cutting edge, my friend. Just this week I read two mainstream articles touting the growing popularity of audiobooks:

Alas, with ACX's gobbling up 60% of the audiobook price, plus instituting the $1.99 price for our audiobooks to lure people to audiobooks at the expense of the authors and narrators -- meaning 40 cents to each of us --

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